In a lake in northern British Columbia, an island suddenly appeared, almost out of thin air, thickly covered in fully-grown trees. When a boater posted footage of the new island on social media, incredulous officials thought the video was AI-generated, according to the New York Times.
But it was no hoax. Satellite imagery of Williston Lake, an artificial reservoir and Canada’s largest body of freshwater, confirmed that the nearly two-and-a-half acre island was real.
“This is a first for us, for this reservoir,” Bob Gammer, a spokesman for BC Hydro, the government-owned utility that operates the reservoir, told the NYT.
Speaking to The Guardian, he added: “In the days of AI, you really needed another form of verification or evidence like a corroborating eyewitness account. And soon, we got that.”
